Daniel's Xmas Beard

New house, Stacey's Pillows, and Hens!

I have retroactively decided that my blog was (is) on "summer vacation."

I have not had much time for makin' stuff, as I've been moving, preparing for the GRE, working on commissioned doggie portraits, working a lot at the cattery, and going on fun trips!

BUT, I had one free day recently, so Stacey came over with a load of her own personally designed and silkscreened fabric, and stuffing, and I helped her turn them into awesome pillows, (for sale, going fast at the low low price of $40 apiece!) Lookie here!

Beanie baby eyes!!!  AAAH!

Chickens enjoying the backyard of our awesome new house:

So, don't go away, folks!  I'm still pretty busy until the end of September, but I've got a whole backlog of awesome projects I want to create and show off as soon as life settles down again.  The blog shall rise again!

Diaper Prototype

When I was on Whidbey, Lucy and I talked about making cloth diapers for her babe-- so I decided to whip up a prototype today.

Here is what it would look like on a baby... if the baby was a tattooed bunny stuffed animal.  (By the way-- Stacey made me this bunny!)

Outside view...

Inside view...

Really really inside view...  (I can't help but make asinine faces in front of a camera.)

As you might have guessed, I'm feeling lazy today so I didn't feel like using an actual camera and took all these photos in Photobooth.  If you can decipher the drawing below, it illustrates basically how the diaper was made.  A is the main red fabric, B is the patterned fabric, sewn on top of A, and C is the white quilt batting you stick between the two layers.  I made it so it's removable for easier and more thorough washability.

I got the pattern idea from this website: http://www.diapersewing.com/quick-and-easy-fitted.htm

It was SO fast to make!  I still have to figure out a fastening technique, but a safety pin would surely work.  Or velcro, or snaps.  Anyway... I guess I'm on a kick.  Cotton menstrual pads, cloth diapers-- why make waste when you can quickly and easily make reusable stuff that is also WAY cooler to look at?  Maybe this is TMI but I get a big kick out of looking in my underpants and finding brightly colored fabric instead of a cheap white plastic pad!

Blast From The Past (2008)

On one of my many visits back to the Bay Area after quitting CCA, I prepared by making a bunch of pencil pouches for friends there.  I recently stumbled upon the following photos while in a self-indulgent photo-archive-prowling nostalgia trip.

They're pretty cool pencil pouches, and I still have some of the fabrics!  I got the fabric for this first one at an estate sale.  It is one of my prized possessions, and I can't think of any project worth cutting it up for!  Most likely I will gradually hack away at it with minuscule projects, like this:

I gave this one to Anna Weiner, I think!

Isn't that print amazing?  What is it?!  Where does it come from?  I'd love to know its history.  Just the other day I saw someone at an info booth at Honk Fest using a table cloth with the same print, but in red!  I asked where it came from, of course, but they were distracted by something else and obviously didn't think it was as cool as I do.

Then there's this one, made with wool felt (also purchased at an estate sale, but a different one).  I think this is the one I gave to Anna Bunting.  I hope everyone is still using them!  I love it when stuff I make for people gets used to tatters.

I cut little windows in the fabric for the print underneath to peek through!

Then, there's this one, for Imma:

And I won't post photos of the crocheted "rasta" hats I gave to Yohta and John on that trip...  Ohhh, things that seem like a good idea at the time...

I finished a project! Yahoo!!! (Fridge bag)

I posted a photo of the beginnings of this bag a couple entries ago.  I copied the pattern from a plastic grocery bag.

It folds quite flat and small, but holds a lot.

This fabric had a selvedge of steel!  Almost broke my needle!  At least it made a pretty cool bottom hem of the bag.

My favorite part, perhaps: the tops of the handles are bound with bias tape on both sides, then folded over and bar-tacked together for strength and style.

Looks kinda like your standard plastic grocery store bag.  Not the MOST attractive thing ever, but it was a fun experiment.

Another experiment:

Daniel's not sure if he wants to eat my creepy cookie that I made specially for him.  The roommates watch in tense anticipation.  (It's just a melted candy cane!!!)

Daniel and I made some silkscreens last week at the Vera Project, of the Mathematician/Philosopher Bertrand Russell.  He is a cool dude!  To get a quick idea of who he is, you should read this short article on an idea he is perhaps most known for: "Russell's Teapot."

Anyway, I was having some masking difficulties as well as alignment difficulties... so... yes, I KNOW it's way off toward my right side.  C'est la vie.

Too much computering for such a lovely day.

A common day in the factory

No tail yet...  but too ADHD to finish before moving on to another project:

This is in the process of becoming a "fridge bag," for use in our current system of roommate food segregation.  I've been using a plastic bag with a piece of masking tape with "Mad" written on it in sharpie, but this will be much more aesthetically pleasing, until, of course, it becomes irrevocably soiled with grease and sticky mystery substance.

Also... appliqueing wool felt is like CRACK!!! Or, it is what I imagine the bliss of a crack high to feel like, since I have never actually tried it.

I can't help it!

I'm obsessed with bodily functions!  I just created an etsy listing for the menstrual pads I've been making.  These ones are made at my friend Jamie's request, but if you want some, I will make more!  I messed with the design until I came up with one I really liked.  Check out all the sweet photos I took of them, and the little diagram I made to show how to fold them up with the period blood on the inside!!!  :D

ETSY!

A Blah Dress for a Blah week for a Blaaaahg entry!

I don't know why I feel BLAH, but that seems to be the theme of this week.  Just driftin' along.  Strange, because I've actually been busy with fun things:  Addie's birthday dinner, seeing Dessa perform at Nectar, riding my new bicycle all over town (YAY!!!)

Anyway, at my house (The Pod) we have a giant bag of crap on the front porch, which is fun to occasionally dig through, hunting for treasure.  It's good grist for the Maddie-mill.  I used a crap-heap shirt and an old bedsheet to make a distinctly school-marmy dress, and then tried to make it a little younger by adorning it with a belt I had begun to make.... oh, two years ago?  It takes me a long time to finish projects.

So, first I took the shirt from the crap heap and cut it to waist length and then sewed some darts.  The photo is post-crop, pre-dart.

 then I got "in the zone" and stopped taking photos, and ultimately wound up with this dress:

I pinned pleats for the jersey bedsheet skirt, and attached it to the top painstakingly, pleat by pleat, all the while thinking "This is going to be a huge bag when I put it on.  It was, so I finished that elastic hipster belt, and used it to magically make a waist in a shapeless, blah dress.

And here's the belt, which I like best of all, so it gets disproportionate face time:

Oooh yeah, baby!



I think I'll eventually sew some elastic strips into the giant skirt, to make it a little more scrunchy and interesting.  If it turns out well, maybe I'll post an update.  Hell, if it turns out horrendously ugly, maybe I'll post an update!

Here are some pictures of things in my room:

The great Boob in the sky

Home away from home